Region No 4 Bhairahawa confirmed a place in semifinal of the Wai Wai Women’s National Twenty20 after beating Region No 3 Kathmandu by 22 runs at the IOE Ground, Pulchowk as Region No 7 Janakpur kept hopes alive beating Region No 2 Birgunj by 78 runs in Group A matches.
Janakpur and Kathmandu will play on January 7 with the winners taking another semifinal spot from the group.
Bhairahawa scored 120/8 in 20 overs batting first. Opener Madhu Thapa topscored with 41 off 31 balls with seven boundaries and took the team to a winning total. The other contributors of the innings were Aarati Koirala (15) and Pratiksha Basyal (10 not out).
Karuna Bhandari was the pick of bowler with 3/13 while Shraddha Aryal (2/21) and Neera Rajopadhyay (2/23) also took wickets.
In reply, Kathmandu quickly went down to 16/3 with Aarati and Khina Thapa claiming wickets. Sarita Magar (32 off 57) and Karuna Bhandari (28 off 24) added 53 for fourth wicket but Kathmandu needed quick runs after that which did not come.
Player of the match Aarati finished with four wickets for 18 runs as Khina got 3/18. Bhairahawa now plays Birgunj on January 7 and a win will ensure their progress as the group winners.
Earlier, Janapur beat Birgunj by a huge margin of 79 runs to keep their hopes alive. Janakpur scored 127/7 in 20overs with Kabita Gautam (35 off 34), Rosy Kadari (29 not out off 26) and Shova Ale (18 off 21) contributing to the total.
For Birgunj, Nira Giri, Subhadra Adhikari, Pooja Giri and Rojina Aryal each took a wicket.
In reply, Birgunj were bowled out for 48 in 14 overs with none of the batswomen getting double-digit and majority of runs, 19, coming off extras.
Shova bowled brilliantly to take 5/8 while Anu Chaudhary took two wickets.